The present invention relates broadly to apparatus for finishing textile products and, more particularly, to an apparatus for processing socks which will perform a plurality of finishing operations automatically with the socks being arranged in nested pairs.
After the initial knitting operations which construct individual socks, several finishing operations are typically performed thereon prior to shipment of the socks for sale. These operations may include clipping or trimming unnecessary textile material from the surface of the socks, pressing the socks to remove substantially all the wrinkles therefrom and printing written information, commercial logos or other indicia on the outer surface of at least one of a pair of socks. It would be advantageous to perform all of these functions in a sequential order on two individual socks arranged in a nested pair.
Apparatus for processing hosiery automatically in a sequential order is disclosed in Takamura et al, U.S. Pat. No. 5,094,371. There, a rotary apparatus is disclosed wherein an indexing turntable advances stockings mounted on templates through various stations, each performing a different operation such as steaming or opening or closing the stockings. The stockings are individually carried on the templates. Bell et al, U.S. Pat. No. 5,511,501 discloses an indexing turntable used for processing hose blanks through a plurality of processing stations. Both of these devices operate with hosiery disposed individually on forms or templates.